Monday, March 9, 2009

The real blight on Brooklyn

In December 2003, Mayor Michael Bloomberg thought he had a slam dunk. He along with Brooklyn Borough President Marty Markowitz and developer Bruce Ratner struck a deal for a $4.3 billion development project that was to remake downtown Brooklyn by building expansive residential and retail space, and a gleaming new $950 million arena that would bring the New Jersey Nets to the borough.

Now, more than five years later, what's been brought to Brooklyn is a very large hole in the ground and a project that is coming to symbolize why large government projects can be riskier than allowing local residents to fix up their own communities. What we see in Brooklyn is the beginnings of the failure of a massive government plan to revive the economy of a neighborhood.

Now officials have a mess on their hands. The development got just far enough to do considerable damage to the neighborhood without progressing far enough to do any good. Atlantic Yards has razed 26 buildings, with government help, creating the blight its developer had argued was there all along. Now there are gashes where late-19th century and early-20th century buildings once stood.

Would you want a boondoggle with 20x the density of the surrounding neighborhoods in your backyard, blocking out your light and air and making the transit and traffic even more of a nightmare than it is now? I doubt it.

"If the ridiculous lawsuits didn't delay this project for so long, something may actually have been built by now. The NIMBYs really messed this one up."

Ok let's use eminent domain to take your house and plop a big commercial enterprise partially paid for by your taxes right there in your neighborhood and see how NIMBY you are! You would be the first one cryin!

Would you want a boondoggle with 20x the density of the surrounding neighborhoods in your backyard, blocking out your light and air and making the transit and traffic even more of a nightmare than it is now? I doubt it.

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Only if you live in Elmhurst or Astoria.

For example, its might be hard to believe, but criticize development on astorians.com and you actually get banned.

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